


All the Heavens in the Motion

by kanjiklubgottold



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: A lot of Depeche Mode fanwanking, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Finnrey Fridays fic, Theme: Songs and Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 12:59:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7619047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanjiklubgottold/pseuds/kanjiklubgottold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn takes a musical trip down memory lane during a quiet and pivotal date with Rey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Heavens in the Motion

**Author's Note:**

> For Finnrey Fridays' second themed week: Music and Songs! Un-beta'd, so forgive any errors.
> 
> (Yes, I grew up on my cousins' 80s and 90s music and I love this band. It happens, lol!)

Finn realized he wasn’t singing softly enough not to be heard over the music only when Rey dimpled at him and winked.

“Sorry.” He ignored the hot flush creeping up the back of his neck. “I’ll leave the singing to the professionals.”

“No, I like your voice,” said Rey, placing a gentle hand just above his knee. “I was laughing because I was thinking about last week – you were so dead-set against karaoke, and listen to you – you can really sing!”

Finn glanced down at her hand, squirming slightly under the quiet weight of it. Rey’s hands were small and pale and had tiny scars at her wrists – legacies, she’d told him, of a childhood of scavenging copper wire, bits of tin, metal objects that might provide a few dollars for day’s meal. She’d put her finds in burlap sacks that bit into her wrists as she dragged her burden three miles to a “collection” center in the middle of a lonely desert town.

Rey had told him all about it one night after they’d played pool. The drab fluorescent lights of the pool hall had made the marks look blue against the burnished gold of her skin, and Rey had caught him staring. She had told him the story without embarrassment, but Finn had noticed that she’d taken pains since then not to show her hands very much.

But now she’d placed one of those marked hands in full view, just above his knee, just inches from his thigh. Finn swallowed hard.

“Yeah, I guess I’m all right. The karaoke thing … singing in public to Bon Jovi’s entire catalog sounds fun in theory, but it isn’t really me.” Finn’s smile was a nervous twist of lips. “I think I’m just used to being alone whenever I listen to this. All of my friends think this music is kinda dated. I suppose it is, but it doesn’t mean it’s not good.”

She nodded, gave his leg a farewell squeeze, and they fell into what, by Finn’s count, was the fifth comfortable silence of that night. They’d been sprinkled throughout the evening, one popping up at dinner, another when they’d watched the newest episode of _Game of Thrones_ , a third when he’d thumbed through the TV listings to see if there was any other series worth watching and Rey had cuddled against him, laying her head against his shoulder, the fourth when he’d put on some music, and then, now – the two of them quietly enjoying the silence …

Finn chuckled when a familiar guitar riff cut through his thoughts. Rey turned to him, her eyebrows raised in question.

“I was just thinking,” said Finn, “that we were sitting here, _enjoying the silence_ , and …” he gestured at the stereo.

Rey’s face brightened in understanding and they both laughed.

“I’m starting to think that you have this thing programmed to align with your thoughts.”

Her gold-green eyes were twinkling in the half-light of the room. Finn had dimmed the lamps when they’d started watching television – to give the place more _atmosphere._ It occurred to him that this was probably the one Depeche Mode album that probably didn’t need to be listened to in the dark, but the dimness was somehow comforting.

“Nah, just have it on shuffle.” Finn grinned as the guitar melody from _Enjoy the Silence_ looped through the room. “That was nice timing though. Do you like this one? It’s probably their most famous song ever but it’s probably _my_ least favorite one – on this album, at least.”

“Really?”

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great song. Maybe it’s just that you hear it everywhere whenever someone talks about Depeche, and there’re just better songs.” Finn shrugged. “I guess it’s a matter of personal taste.”

Rey picked up her wineglass and studied Finn over the rim.

“Why this band? It’s famous, I know, but it’s so …” She paused and stared into her drink.

“Dated? Retro? _Weird_?”

“No.” Rey put the glass down looked over at him again. “It’s unusual. Which is not a _bad_ thing. I mean, retro is in. There are 17-year-old kids who love the Beatles and 60s pop and 70s soul and 80s dance music. It’s just … the way you talk about this band, it feels … personal.”

Finn lowered his eyes. Their knees were touching. He wasn’t sure how it had escaped his notice that Rey had turned her body toward him and had moved closer. Her dress rode up a little, not quite to her thighs, and he was aware of her bare legs. He closed his eyes briefly, imagining her legs on his shoulders and his face between her thighs, licking her while she writhed and moaned above him.

He discreetly – he hoped – shifted a bit away from her, breaking their point of contact.

“I suppose it’s a little personal,” he acknowledged. “But maybe not in the way you think.”

Rey was quiet. She was staring at him with interested eyes, and her hands in her lap. Her hair was down and she looked almost terrifyingly beautiful and fragile. Finn was conscious of a desire to reach out and stroke the soft, golden skin, tangle his fingers in the deep richness of her hair, gaze into the jewel-box eyes until he forgot his name.

Instead he took a long swallow of his ginger ale – he was driving her home later, after all – and gave her another lopsided smile.

“My, uh, my foster dad was sort of poor growing up,” he said. “But he was smart. He was able to test into the good schools in his town and he got a full scholarship to this swanky boarding school for highs school. He made a lot of friends and one guy was the son of a pretty influential music producer. My foster dad went to college and all but when he graduated there really wasn’t a lot of jobs available and he was thinking maybe he wanted to get into music or acting or something. So he called up his old buddy who talked to his old man. The guy got him a job as a traveling roadie for a band going on tour here.”

Rey’s eyes widened. Finn grinned and nodded.

“It was weird, because my foster dad had heard of Depeche – I mean, who hadn’t, it was the 80s – but he wasn’t a big fan of their music or new wave or synth in general. But a job was a job and he figured that a chance to get paid for seeing the country and maybe making some good industry connections wasn’t going to come around again, so he signed on. It was their _Music for the Masses_ tour – it came to the States in 1988.”

He paused at the almost imperceptible click that signaled the next song queuing up. A small frown touched his lips when Dave Gahan’s plaintive baritone filled the room, professing that he was _clean_. Finn disliked the song for the sheer desperation that he could sense in the melodic voice. Gahan had been anything _but_ during that period of the band, and Finn wondered how anyone could have heard the song and not tried to _do_ something about the path of the destruction the man had been on, and by the grace of … something … had managed to escape.

“He said that as time went on,” continued Finn, “he realized he’d been wrong. Depeche wasn’t going to be another Soft Cell or Spandau Ballet or anything where you’d have a couple of popular songs that would get on an 80s compilation album somewhere. Depeche was the real deal. He said when they got to the last show – the Rose Bowl in Pasadena – everyone knew Depeche had broken it wide open. He said that show was the closest thing a human being could get to feeling what it’s like to be plugged straight into an electric socket – and live.”

A vague smile lifted the corners of Finn’s mouth. “He didn’t make too many connections. He didn’t really mind, but he sort of drifted. Two years later, this album came out and Depeche Mode was officially a household name. My foster dad took grad courses at night and got an okay job in an office. The only time I ever really saw him happy was when he was listening to this band.”

“Was he … good to you?” Rey gave him a furtive glance, almost as if she were afraid of the answer. “Did he treat you okay?”

“Relatively. He and his wife – my foster mom – were all right. I was with them from the time I was 14 until I was 18,” said Finn. “They fed me, kept a roof over my head, helped me with homework, came to my plays …”

“You were in _plays_?” The dimples were back. “Really?”

“Yeah. I was actually pretty good. I almost always was the lead, or at least the co-lead,” said Finn, not quite modestly. “I thought about a career in acting, but my foster dad sort of talked me out of it. It’s a tough business. I figured he would know.”

Rey’s lips thinned but she didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then: “Do you talk to them a lot? Or visit? They’re back in Serenno Springs, right?”

“Yeah, they are, but we don’t talk much,” said Finn, hoping his voice carried just the right amount of indifference. “They sort of weren’t happy that I went into the service. I had the grades to go to Serreno State, but I would have had to take out loans and all, and that just seemed like a bad deal to me. I figured that at least in the Army, when I got out, I’d have money for college. The last time we talked was right before I flew home, while I was in the hospital recuperating …”

He broke off, his eyes lighting up at the plink of synthesizers and then the steady rhythm of an electronic drum machine. Finally. _Finally._

“Sorry, this is my favorite song,” he said, glancing over at Rey. “I might actually sing along to this one without realizing it. Just poke me or something if I do.”

But Rey was frowning thoughtfully in the direction of the stereo as the singer’s deep voice warbled toward her over the sound of electronic instruments and digital effects.

“I don’t think I know this one. Most of the others, I’ve heard before.”

Finn gasped and pulled a mock face of surprise.

“You’ve never heard _World in My Eyes_ before? Wow … okay, I’ll try to keep quiet so you can get the full impact, because this song is fucking _outstanding._ ”

She darted a glance at him, her eyes amused at his obscene enthusiasm. Finn was barely aware. His eyes were half closed and his lips moved silently, right on beat with the synths.

 _I'll take you to the highest mountain_  
To the depths of the deepest sea  
And we won't need a map  
Believe me

 _Now let my body do the moving_  
And let my hands do the soothing  
Let me show you the world in my eyes

Finn opened his eyes. He could feel Rey’s gaze on him and he looked over at her. Rey’s expression was rapt, and her mouth was slightly open. She was enjoying watching him. Their knees were touching again.

“For the longest time, I thought this song was about airplanes,” said Finn with a tight, rueful smile. “You know, the first verse, when he goes:

 _‘_ _Let me take you on a trip_  
Around the world and back  
And you won't have to move  
You just sit still’

“Sounded like an airplane to me.”

Finn smiled at Rey’s smothered laughter. “I was maybe 16 or 17 when I realized this song was about sex.”

“Wait – aren’t _most_ of their songs about sex?”

“During this period, most of their songs were about drugs,” said Finn. “Sometimes sex _and_ drugs. But this one is just about sex. After I listened to it, knowing what it was really about, I realized that it’s probably one of the most underrated love songs ever written.”

Finn took a long breath before angling toward her. “I think the deeper meaning – or at least the meaning for me – is that there’s this guy whose met someone awesome who doesn’t see how fantastic they are, so he’s saying, ‘Hey, you’re wonderful, and I see you. And you’re everything to me. You’re my world. I understand that you don’t see how amazing you are, so let me show you, through my eyes, how incredible you are.”

Rey nodded quietly. The song was fading out and blending into _Sweetest Perfection_ – a song, Finn thought wryly, _definitely_ about drugs.

“And as for the sex part, I mean, yeah, the guy wants to get laid, but it’s a little more than the usual ‘I’m a god in bed’ kinda thing.” Finn rubbed his bottom lip. “It’s more like someone who’s fallen in love with a person who maybe hasn’t been too lucky in relationships or hasn’t had really good sex with someone they … love. Or trust. And it’s sort of like … hey, let me show you how fantastic that can be, because I’m the right guy, and _you’re_ the right …”

He trailed off as he and Rey gazed at each other. She bit down on her bottom lip and huffed out a shy laugh.

“The right … person?”

“Yeah.” His voice was soft. “The right … person …”

Rey’s bottom lip was glistening. Finn held his breath as he rubbed his thumb gently over it. Her mouth went slack for a moment, and something sparked in her eyes just before they drifted shut. Rey’s lips tightened suddenly – she was kissing the pad of his thumb.

They leaned toward each other, and Finn gazed at Rey a moment more before touching his lips to hers. Her mouth was warm, and lush and wine-glazed, and she made a delightful little noise of approval as the kiss deepened and their arms twined around each other. He could feel the hard points of her nipples against his chest, straining against the soft, thin fabric of her dress. In his mind’s eye, Finn saw his tongue curl around them one at a time, felt the sensitive flesh pebble between his lips, envisioned her hands in his hair, urging him on.

* * *

Later – much, much, much later – months later, in fact – on the night Rey moved in with him, Finn scooped her up amid all the boxes that she had yet to unpack and carried her off to his – their – bed. Before he could get them both out of their clothing, he put _Violator_ on the stereo again, much to Rey’s amusement.

He didn’t argue, either, when Rey nixed his idea to put the record on shuffle, and at her direction, _World in My Eyes_ played in their bedroom, on a loop, all through the night.  


End file.
